WASHINGTON — Pointing to Friday's shooting in Colorado Springs, congressional Democrats on Tuesday urged Republican leaders to disband a panel created just weeks ago to investigate Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

In a press conference attended by the six U.S. House Democrats assigned to the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, the lawmakers drew a line between the rhetoric used by anti-abortion legislators and Friday's attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, in which three people were killed and 12 injured.

"Since July, the phrase 'baby parts' or similar phrases have been used by the eight (Republican) member of this committee — just those eight members — 33 times," said Diana DeGette of Denver, one of the Democrats on the panel.

"And isn't it interesting that this lone shooter used that same phrase," DeGette said.

Authorities have not said publicly that the issue of abortion was what motivated accused killer Robert Lewis Dear Jr., but a law enforcement official has been widely quoted as saying the suspect said "no more baby parts" following his arrest.

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A spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan said there were no plans to dismantle the committee. The chair of the select panel — U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. — defended its goals earlier this week and criticized opponents for "playing politics" with the killings in Colorado Springs.

"We are focused on a fact-finding mission into abortion practices and fetal tissue procurement and the relationship between the two businesses," said Blackburn in a statement.

The latest criticism builds on weeks of condemnation by Democrats. When Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi named the six Democrats to the panel last month she referred to it as the "Select Committee to Attack Women's Health."

Its creation has its roots in several covert videos released this summer by the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group.

The videos — including one filmed in Colorado — show Planned Parenthood officials talking about a controversial practice in which fetal tissue is collected for medical research. Abortion providers cannot profit from the exchange but they can be reimbursed for the procedure.

The videos rekindled the debate on abortion, with opponents calling it nothing more than the sale of baby parts and supporters defending the practice as useful for life-saving research. Afterward, the U.S. House held at least three hearings on the topic — which included a focus on the roughly $500 million that Planned Parenthood receives annually in government funding.

"At my request, three House committees have been investigating the abortion business, but we still don't have the full truth," said then-House Speaker John Boehner when the panel was announced in late October. "Chairman Blackburn and our members will have the resources and the subpoena power to get to the bottom of these horrific practices, and build on our work to protect the sanctity of all human life."

The reality, however, is this fight is almost certain to end in a legislative draw.

With a Democrat in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, there's little chance either party will advance their agenda, especially since the panel is stacked with stalwarts on both sides of the abortion debate.

This circumstance, coupled with the fact that the House already has held hearings on Planned Parenthood, has led to questions as to why the panel was created in the first place — in part because Blackburn has said there is no guarantee the committee will either produce legislation or hold a public hearing.

Yet one congressional expert said it's a set-up where both parties, as well as their allies, could benefit — through cash, attention or both.

"These things are certainly used to attract money," said Worth Hester of the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.

Less cynically, he added, is that lawmakers can use the panel to influence the abortion debate long-term, however incrementally. Given Congress' longstanding gridlock, work on Capitol Hill often is less about scoring and more about "moving the ball down the field in the right direction from your perspective," he said.

The very existence of the Planned Parenthood committee itself is an anomaly. Rarely has Congress gone the route of creating a select committee or panel.

Previous examples include the Watergate committee that investigated former President Richard Nixon and the so-called Truman committee, headed by then U.S. Sen. Harry Truman, that looked at military spending during World War II.

More recently, the House has used the procedure to take a look at climate change (2007) and the deadly attack on Americans in Benghazi (2014).

"Certainly all select committees are not created equal," said Steve Ellis, of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. "If you are going to have a select committee, the bar has to be pretty high," said Ellis, who noted they can cost millions of dollars.

The furor over Planned Parenthood came to a head this fall just as lawmakers were negotiating a major budget deal. With social conservatives threatening to block any budget that included federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which could have led to a government shutdown, Boehner created the panel, put Blackburn in charge and named seven Republicans to fill the remaining GOP seats.

All the GOP members have received a 100 percent rating from National Right to Life in this session of Congress and — like their Democratic colleagues — the lawmakers collectively have benefited from the support of special-interest groups involved in the abortion debate.

Asked about her goals for the panel, Blackburn said she would focus first on research. As for legislation, Blackburn said it was too early to think about that step. "It would be inappropriate to predetermine what we're going to find or what we think needs to be done," she added.

She was similarly circumspect about whether she planned to hold a public hearing. "If we need one, we'll do it," Blackburn said.

The panel has been given a budget of $300,000 to start; this use of taxpayer money is one place where Democrats and their allies have concentrated their fire.

Already there is talk among Democrats of creating an online budget calculator to show how much it will cost — a move similar to what they have done with the select committee on Benghazi, which they see as a political attack on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"The purpose of that (committee) was just politics," DeGette said. "And this committee is the same way."

The Benghazi committee so far has cost taxpayers more than $5 million, according Democrats involved with that panel. In a counterpoint, an aide to Blackburn noted the global warming committee created by Democrats cost nearly $8 million.

In spite of Democratic protests over Benghazi, both parties have sought to raise money off that investigation. The National Republican Congressional Committee took heat last year for encouraging potential donors to become Benghazi watchdogs.

Democrats have used the Benghazi committee to fire-up the base as well; a spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign said in October that the campaign had its best hour of fundraising within a day of her appearance before the panel.

It remains to be seen what effect the Planned Parenthood committee has on fundraising — though special-interest groups involved in the abortion debate tried to use it as a way to raise money before the Colorado Springs shooting; the lawmakers involved have a history of receiving financial support from these organizations as well.

That includes Mia Love of Utah and Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, who were supported last year through independent expenditures by the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group. These buys were for $16,490 and $12,180 respectively, according to the Center for Responsive Politics — two small pieces of the nearly $746,000 in independent expenditures that the Susan B. Anthony List used for Republicans or against Democrats in the 2014 election cycle.

In a Nov. 23 e-mail, officials with Susan B. Anthony List mentioned the panel as part of its fundraising pitch: "Pro-life women like Reps. Marsha Blackburn and Diane Black (are) leading the charge to expose Planned Parenthood as a part of the new congressional Panel on Infant Lives."

For its part, Planned Parenthood spent more than $6 million on federal elections in 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That includes a $4,000 in donations that year to DeGette and $3,830 for the panel's top Democrat, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois.

Schakowsky's campaign recently highlighted her upcoming work in a fundraising e-mail. "Can you contribute $5, $10, $25, $100 to help Jan stop the GOP from defunding Planned Parenthood?" it noted.

"Let's be really clear," said DeGette, who once served on the board of directors for Planned Parenthood in Colorado. "My side opposed establishment of this select committee. This is not both sides saying we should have a select committee so we could cater to our base."

She said the potential lack of a public hearing was telling too, a sign perhaps that the only reason House leaders formed the committee was to "mollify their far right so they could pass a budget."

Abortion rights groups are using the panel as a way to raise money as well.

In a fundraising e-mail sent on Nov. 10, officials with NARAL Pro-Choice America made a comparison to the Benghazi committee as part of its appeal to donors.

"Anti-choice politicians are obsessed with restricting abortion access by any means necessary. That's why the House voted to create a special Benghazi-style committee to attack and investigate Planned Parenthood — despite how totally redundant that is," wrote Sasha Bruce of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

She promised to keep supporters "in the loop" of the proceedings; an orange icon at the end of the e-mail encouraged recipients to "donate now."

The driving force behind Congress' focus on Planned Parenthood is a series of videos released this summer by the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group. In them, actors speak with Planned Parenthood officials about a practice in which fetal tissue is collected for medical research; a procedure in which abortion providers can be reimbursed. Abortion opponents say the videos show that Planned Parenthood is profiting from the exchange; supporters counter that they show nothing illegal and that the videos are deceptively edited.

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